Sunday, October 09, 2005

Jay Tea at Wizbang! gripes about the recent Nobel Prize awards, particularly the awarding of the Peace Prize to Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The failure of a Nobel Experiment

The International Atomic Energy Agency has to be one of the biggest jokes in the world today. Charged with enforcing the Non-Proliferation Treaty and shepherding research and development of nuclear power into peaceful paths, they have a stellar record of accomplishments.

Unfortunately, that stellar record is of failures.

On their watch:

* India announced it officially possessed nuclear weapons.* Pakistan announced it had nuclear weapons.* Libya announced that it had a highly-developed nuclear weapons program, and turned it over -- lock, stock, and barrel -- to the United States.* North Korea has continued violations of the treaty and is unabashedly seeking nuclear weapons.* Iran has repeatedly violated the treaty and is unabashedly seeking nuclear weapons.* Pakistan has helped spread what it has learned about nuclear weapons throughout the Muslim world.

There are several technical problems with this list of "failures," but I restrained my inner nit-picker. Until, that is, Jay Tea responded to a comment that he had overlooked Israel's nuclear ambitions.

The IAEA's authority extends from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty -- a treaty Israel has never signed. Hence the IAEA has absolutely no right and no business in Israel, as the agreement that is its empowering authority simply doesn't apply.

Well now. Jay Tea probably thought he was saving Israel, but all he did was put India, Pakistan, and North Korea back into play.

Once he went technical about parties and signatories and jurisdiction and empowering authority, Jay Tea invalidated most of the IAEA "failures" he had listed.

India and Pakistan have never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Thus, the IAEA has no right and no business in India and Pakistan either.

The IAEA also has no right and no business in North Korea, which originally signed the treaty but later revoked its signature.

But Jay Tea didn't stop there. He also tossed off a comment about the Nobel Prize for Literature: [T]he "literature" prize is usually given to some excessively-PC author.

And to see how incredibly wrong that statement is, I refer you to Tbogg.